But I think that Parliament and the Government might come in to the picture.  In the first place, the ordinary national system of unemployment relief, which must in any case continue, might be so framed as to encourage rather than to discourage the institution of industrial schemes.  Under the Insurance Act of 1920 “contracting out” was provided for, but it was penalised, while at the present moment it is prohibited altogether.  I say that it should rather be encouraged, that everything should be done, in fact, to suggest that not a legal but a moral obligation lies upon each industry to do its best to work out a satisfactory unemployment scheme.  And, when an industry has done that, I think the State should come in again.  I think that the representative joint committee, formed to administer such a scheme, might well be endowed by statute with a formal status, and certain clearly-defined powers—­such as the Cotton Control Board possessed during the war—­of enforcing its decisions.

But—­and, of course, there is a “but”—­we cannot expect very much from this in the near future.  We must wait for better trade conditions before we begin; and, as I have already indicated, the prospects of really good trade in the next few years are none too well assured.  For a long time to come, it is clear, we must rely upon the ordinary State machinery for the provision of unemployment relief; and, of course, the machinery of the State will always be required to cover a large part of the ground.  The liability which an industry assumes must necessarily be strictly limited in point of time; and there are many occupations in which it will probably always prove impracticable for the occupation to assume even a temporary liability.  For the meantime, at any rate, we must rely mainly upon the State machinery.  Is it possible to improve upon the present working of this machinery?  I think it is.  By the State machinery I mean not merely the Central Government, but the local authorities and the local Boards of Guardians.

THE PRESENT MACHINERY OF RELIEF

At present what is the situation?  Most unemployed work-people are entitled to receive certain payments from the Employment Exchanges under a so-called Insurance scheme, which is administered on a national basis; some weeks they are entitled to receive those payments, other weeks they are not; but in any case those payments afford relief which is admittedly inadequate, and they are supplemented—­and very materially supplemented—­by sums varying from one locality to another, but within each locality on a uniform scale, which are paid by the Boards of Guardians in the form of outdoor relief.  Now that situation is highly unsatisfactory.  The system of outdoor relief and the machinery of the Guardians are not adapted for work of this kind.  They are designed to meet the problem of individual cases of distress, not necessarily arising from unemployment, but in